I Was Surprised by Motherhood Too!

So today’s post is about love. And being a mother. And isn’t it really supposed to be the same thing? Whatever kind of mother we turn out to be…we are meant to learn to love well.

When I was expecting my firstborn, I knew that I was on the verge of falling off a cliff. I had my dream job. I was the Clinic Supervisor for the Dental Hygiene Program at LSU School of Dentistry and my husband was graduating from the Dental Program in a few months. Our life was so ordered around work and school, and dentistry; it was all the same for us. And we loved it.

We had waited eight years after marrying to have children. Someone very close to me had three children and three difficult pregnancies. Bed rest. Close calls. The more I saw, the more I felt sure that I couldn’t possibly become a mom until my husband finished school. And then there was the idea of day care…we were such germaphobes, being dental people. Umm, did I say “we were”? Let me tell you the truth, if you ever see me in person, you can count on one thing: I will have hand sanitizer within arm’s reach.

At graduation time, Scott was sworn into the Navy as a dentist (yes, he is in the Air Force now…that is another story). Meanwhile, I munched on crackers, fighting morning sickness. Graduation ceremonies in New Orleans, in May? I wore a cap and polyestergown to his graduation too, being faculty. It was hot. And all our friends wondered aloud to me, just how long it would be till I started back to work again, in the new place, after we moved to our first duty station, after we had our first baby. How long?

No one really believed me when I said, “I’ll be staying home. At least for the first few years.” Years…even a fewof them sounded like forever to me and that was almost twelve years ago. But somehow I just knew, without a doubt, that this was what was next for me. And I was a little freaked out, on the inside. I knew there was a reckoning waiting for me on the other side of motherhood. Or a wrecking. Or both.

I read all the books like a good mom-to-be. And none of them prepared me for my new job. None of the books prepared me for the humbling of me. One chapter of one Book was what I needed to study: First Corinthians Chapter 13, the Love Chapter. This tells what is important. These were the things I needed to be, and what I wanted so desperately to be able to teach to my little ones. But if this had been a pass/fail test, I failed daily:

Slowly, I began to realize that God’s greatest lessons for me were found inthe midst of the messy connections with people in my life. All of them served as a mirror for me. When someone stomped on my heart, contentment did not ooze out. When someone ran over me in a relationship, I did not turn the other cheek. And if someone said unkind things to me, I never remembered this: The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent (Ex 14:14).

Loving difficult people is where God schools you in loving.It is where you meet Him. It is the hard place where the Rock refines your own rough edges. And children are teeny tiny difficult people. So I think the thing that surprised me most about motherhood is that, the only way to prepare for it, is to prepare your heart by knowing God. Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life (Prov 4:23).

Everything else is OJT (on the job training). Parenting isn’t a skill or a love language or a philosophy; it is a practice. Paul gives us this promise: What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you (Phil 4:9). At the end of all the stress and the strife and the spiritual growth <read “painful process” here> lies deeper relationship with the God of peace.

This post was inspired by a brand new book: Surprised by Motherhood(amazon link). As a special gift to my readers, Lisa-Jo Baker is sharing a free preview of three chapters from this amazing book. Click here to get that. And please tell me in the comments, what has surprised you most about motherhood?

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I think, what I was most surprised by, is the feeling of losing control. Most of my life I have always felt a sense of control, and me (to some degree) directing the course of life’s ship—-
when it came to the kids, I had to deal with a lot of anxiety because I lost the ability to control things. (if they got hurt, sick, sad, scared etc) I am still in the process of accepting that they are His, and He is in control of their story weaving–not me.
So yeah, realizing that I don’t call the shots, and I consistently have to be running to God with my fears for them, was definitely something I wasn’t expecting. I kinda thought, they would just, ‘learn to read’ or just ‘ readily accept Christ into their hearts’ ‘¦‘¦..basically I was expecting a walk in the park or something! ( ;D )
But it is so much more than that.
A great journey,
definitely a learning one–more for me than them, I think!

What surprised me most was feeling completely and utterly incompetent to mother a child, and I didn’t feel that until we brought him home. I cried all the way home from the hospital, and when I finally got four hours of sleep in a row in the wee hours of that first night, all I could think was “well, I didn’t kill him.”

I was 35 years old when he was born, and had barely been married a year. I worked up until he was born, and had been working in that field for 9 years, so I felt competent…and confident. That evaporated when baby came, and I felt at loose ends, out of control, clueless, and I didn’t know how to figure it all out.

Perhaps the best advice I ever got was from a friend of mine…who was only a little ahead of me with kiddos (two littles, one of whom was an infant). She said “STOP READING! You’re driving yourself crazy. You don’t have to know everything at once. All you need to know is how to do things for now. You will learn as you go, and you need to let yourself do that.” And she was right. I was reading everything I could get my hands on about how to parent. Everything conflicted with everything else. Many things didn’t ring true to me, and other things seemed like a good idea until I tried them. So I quit reading, and tried to let my instincts kick in. My friend reminded me that I knew my baby, and I was being conscientious, and it would get easier. And it has. And I’m thankful.

Well said! I remember my old country doctor OB/GYN from when I was pregnant with Grace. He was a mountain of a man. Every visit I came in with tons of questions about the worst case scenarios, till he finally drawled in his deep voice, “Hon, you’ve got to stop watching ‘A Baby’s Story’.” LOL!

Britta, this was SO good! I love hearing your reflections on beginning motherhood, and all your thoughts about it . . . especially the phrase “The only way to prepare for motherhood is to prepare your heart by knowing God. The rest is just on the job training.” That is incredibly true. Thank you for sharing!